Souvenir City: Destinations for Boulder-Themed Items

Boulder is rich in memories – ones your family and friends might want to take home. This means we’ve got quite the array of boutique-type shops for just those kinds of shopping specialties. Having waves of tourism passing through at all times means we’ve got lots of gifts being sold through these boutiques. Three of the most established, longest-running places to procure the widest variety of local gifts for that special out-of-town someone (or to show off when you get home if you’re passing through yourself) luckily all boast spots on the historic Pearl Street Mall.

Art Mart has been around so long, they used to have a second store in the Crossroads Mall. Remember the Crossroads Mall?

Art Mart is a purveyor of handcrafted gifts, mainly centered on jewelry and accessories (like scarves, purses, etc.). It’s set up as an artist-share, with each artist renting out areas of counter and cabinet. There is also a healthy array of cards and artwork for your walls, including some stunning photography of local landscapes and other Boulder-based beauty.

Advantages: Lots of reasonably-priced high quality art; even if some of the jewelry can get up there in price depending on material, there’s something for nearly every budget.

Not so much: It looks like a little grungy hole in the wall, and is easily breezed past if you’re not looking for it and/or don’t know about the treasures that lie within.

With a clever play on the name of CU-Boulder’s mascot animal, Where the Buffalo Roam is the hub of your Buffs-centered (and other more general Boulder-touristy) needs. This little shop is lined from floor to ceiling with cubbies of whimsical Tshirts, which is WTBR’s main theme. If you want to say about Boulder that you’ve been there, done that and gotten the Tshirt, you could do worse than Where the Buffalo Roam.

Advantages: Any of the more CU-sporty, touristy, and humorous sports wear you could possibly want is here. From Buffs to weed to Boulder jokes.

Similar to Art Mart but with less emphasis on jewelry, Boulder Arts and Crafts Gallery is an art gallery and gift shop in one, on steroids. Every spare square inch of this shop is crammed with local artists’ creations, with huge variety from cards and wall clocks to recycled-material purses and magic wands. Like Art Mart, you’ll see many artists’ work on display everywhere, in a share-type setup; unlike Art Mart, there will be less wearable art and more art objects and wall hangings.

Advantages: A huge variety of arts of all kinds.

Not so much: It’s a bit pricier generally, and not as much Boulder-themed art particularly, though the artists are (wonderfully so) all local.

Rating: 4 gold-dipped aspen leaves out of 5

About Jennifer Zukowski

Jenn Zukowski is adjunct faculty at DU, MSU, Regis University and Front Range Community College. She teaches courses in writing, literature, visual arts, performing arts, movement, and of course stage combat. She is the author of Stage Combat: Fisticuffs, Stunts, and Swordplay for Theatre and Film, out from Allworth Press in 2006. She can be seen performing on stage and in classrooms in the Boulder/Denver area with such groups as the Band of Toughs and Boulder Burlesque, and her work can be seen online at Daily Cross-Swords and Sherlock's Home. She tweets at @bonzuko.